An Update from the Commissioners - September 2, 2022

What Happened This Week

This week marked the beginning of the third and final phase of public proceedings, focused on developing recommendations. At the start of the week, Commission counsel presented an Environmental Scan of Past Recommendations prepared by our Research and Policy team. The Environmental Scan is designed to assist the Commission, Participants and the public in understanding the findings and recommendations of earlier inquiries and reviews that are relevant to the mandate. We also held Participant Consultations with victim advocacy organizations, police-related organizations and gender-based organizations.

In the coming weeks, we will continue to hold Participant Consultations and roundtable discussions, exploring recommendations for consideration by the Commissioners. We will be hearing from people with direct and related experiences taking part in facilitated sessions, helping us to better understand the impacts of the mass casualty. Finally, we will hear from a small number of additional witnesses as we begin to wrap up the work of our earlier phases.

Share Your Suggestions for Change

We have encouraged participation throughout our process and we emphasize now that this is the last opportunity to share your thoughts and recommendations with us before we focus exclusively on preparing the final report. We all have a role to play in helping to make our communities safer, sharing our recommendations and then taking action to drive change. When all the different parts of our communities work together—including first responders, public institutions, private enterprise, community groups and individual community members—we can make things safer and better for everyone.

You do not need to wait until the final report is released to share your suggestions for change. You can share your thoughts and recommendations on our website, via email, by phone or mail a letter.

Shaping Your Recommendations

There are a number of resources and tools available on our website to help you in thinking about and shaping your suggestions and recommendations for change. First, there is an extensive amount of information and recordings of proceedings available on our website, including Foundational Documents, research and Commissioned Reports, and recordings of roundtable discussions.

The Commission has developed a Discussion Guide summarizing the kinds of issues we are exploring and asking questions to help you think about recommendations. We hope this will help you as you talk about potential changes you would like to see with your colleagues, family, friends and neighbours. The Discussion Guide is available on our website. Please share with others who you think also have ideas or recommendations to bring forward.

Finally, the Environmental Scan of Past Recommendations is now available on our website. This scan, which captures over 2,000 relevant recommendations from earlier public inquiries, is a resource to help communities, policy-makers and others to understand the history of relevant findings and recommendations. By reading about previous recommendations, our hope is that it inspires new thinking and sparks discussions which may help you develop your suggestions for change.

Proceedings Schedule

Next week’s public proceedings (September 6, 7, 8 and 9) will all be held virtually. You can follow proceedings by watching the webcasts or by listening to live audio from the proceedings by calling 1-877-385-4099 (toll free) and entering code 1742076 followed by the # sign.

Please note that registration is required to view the proceedings for Tuesday afternoon’s witness testimony at 1:00 pm. In order to register, please email Heather.DeCoste@masscasualtycommission.ca. Once registered, you will be sent a link via email to watch the proceedings. More information on this decision is provided in the update below and here on the website.

Please note the varied start times next week.

• Tuesday, September 6
  • 8:30am Participant Consultation: Firearms organizations
    • Participant organizations are invited to take part in public discussions about issues and potential ways to make changes based on a shared area of focus including victim advocacy organizations, gender-based organizations, police-related organizations and more
  • 1:00pm Witness: Cst. Greg Wiley,
    • Cst. Greg Wiley has been a constable with the RCMP since 2006 and was stationed in Nova Scotia from 2006 to 2018. We anticipate Cst. Wiley will provide information about the following:
      • His involvement in the case of Susan Butlin
      • His interactions with the perpetrator
      • His involvement in the investigations resulting from the complaints about the perpetrator received by Halifax Regional Police in June 2010 and the Truro Police in May 2011
    • This witness testimony is available to watch by the public, but will require registration as noted above, due to an accommodation request. You can find more information about registration on our calendar page, and more information about the decision to grant the accommodation on our documents page.
• Wednesday, September 7
  • 9:30am Roundtable:
    • Contemporary Community Policing, Community Safety and Well-being
• Thursday, September 8
  • 9:30am Roundtable:
    • Structure of Policing in Nova Scotia
• Friday, September 9
  • 11:00am Witness: Dep. Commissioner Brian Brennan, RCMP

As always, mental health, wellness and other supports are available if you or a loved one need them, both on-site during in-person proceedings and through the Commission’s website.

Sincerely,

The Mass Casualty Commission

Hon. J. Michael MacDonald, Chair

Leanne J. Fitch (Ret. Police Chief, M.O.M.)

Dr. Kim Stanton